My review of “Yossi and Jagger” was published in the New Jersey Jewish News issue dated April 24, 2004. My piece on its sequel, “Yossi,” has been published in the current issue of this same newspaper. The main character in both, Yossi, played by the same actor, has changed his status in life from being a junior infantry officer who loses his lover, Lior Jagger, in combat in Lebanon, to a career as a cardiologist in a Tel Aviv hospital. But he has not yet moved beyond his grief. He remains deeply depressed.

And while Israeli society has changed to the point that being gay is no longer as stigmatized as it was ten years before, Yossi Gutman, M. D., has still not emerged from the proverbial closet. The NY Times reviewer, Stephen Holden, expressed incredulity that Yossi’s young new love would be so open about his sexuality and so accepted by his boisterously straight army buddies. But since the filmmaker is Eytan Fox, a gay Israeli who generally explores this reality in his films, who are we to doubt it?

Unfortunately, the relative advance for gays and lesbians in Israel is a source of contention that bleeds into the Arab-Israeli conflict and the overwrought polemics of pro-Israel defenders and anti-Zionist detractors. Pro-Israel elements will focus upon advances for gays as evidence of Israel’s progressive nature; anti-Israel activists will condemn this as “pinkwashing,” an attempt to divert attention from Israel’s poor human rights record regarding the Palestinians.

As I put it in my new review: “advances are parallel to and slightly in advance of gains made for same-sex equality in this country. For example, openly gay members of the military were officially accepted years earlier in Israel than in the United States.”

Although I’m sure that Israel is far from nirvana for gays (what country is?), it is genuinely better there than in other countries in the Middle East. This alone is worth noting. But I’m sure it’s also true that when this fact is rolled out for purposes of hasbara (public relations or propaganda), pinkwashing is going on. Still, can’t Israel simply be celebrated for a genuine achievement in this area?

4 Responses to “An Achievement Beyond ‘Pinkwashing’”

Thank you for this, Ralph. I am afraid I completely agree: I am so tired of the “more holier than thou” attitude of the P.C frum who point out that although Israel consciously “touts” it’s liberal or progressive line toward LGBT people who are, often Jewish, Israeli, or at least Western, its record with Palestinians is shoddy. It is shoddy; it needs to be rethought and very much improved. But nothing in Israel compares to the treatment of sexual minorities in other Moslem fundamentalist countries, such as in Iran where 18-year-old boys have been hanged for “homosexual rape.” We are now seeing the smug virtue of the Left enjoying itself at Israel’s expense: I genuinely hate this. It’s painful. Perry Brass, http://www.perrybrass.com.

Perry, well said. There are those here who have accused Israel of pink washing the conflict. Israel’s laws have been crafted because they are right, not to win over the far left PC crowd that would never want to challenge the Arab world

As I understand it, Israeli “law” in these domestic disputation areas has been turned over to the Rabinnate in some manner. Is this correct? If it is, then is it by virtue of this source of authority that he regards such laws as “right.” Just curious.

David Deutsch is apparently confusing this issue with the overall question of marriage and divorce. There is no civil marriage and divorce, which is governed by recognized religious authorities, depending upon what religious community a person is categorized as a member of (whether Jewish, Muslim, Christian or Druze).

In that sense, there will be no same-sex marriage until there is an end to the monopoly control of Orthodox and other conservative religious authorities in the area of marriage. But in terms of military service, in being elected to office and in most other areas of life, progress by the gay/LGBTQ has been remarkable. For example, the transgendered singer known as Dana International has become a pop music sensation; she began life as Yaron Cohen, becoming Sharon Cohen.